Faith's Review and Expectation

“Faith’s Review and Expectation”: establishment of the Episcopal Church in Maine during the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A series of six presentations to be given at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Portland, Maine, as part of the Adult Spiritual Formation program, by Charles P. M. Outwin, Ph.D 1 May - 5 June 2011 The story of the seemingly haphazard founding and tentative growth of the Episcopal Church in early Maine is one of drama and persecution, determination and trial. Through the efforts of dedicated laypersons and of SPG missionaries who wanted to see flourishing Episcopal parishes in colonial Maine, a few struggling, but faithful, missionary communities were established. Some survived the War for Independence; most did not. The tribulations attendant on civil conflict were to be followed afterward by decades of struggle for survival. Secularist philosophy and new creeds challenged traditional Christian theology for the hearts and minds of the earnest young nation; in the early years of the 19th century, the continued existence of the Episcopal Church itself, not only in Maine but elsewhere in the United States, was not assured. Even so, a small number of remarkable individuals arose to lead the national, regional, and state Episcopal institutions toward stability and expansion of the faith. The Episcopal Church has been given short shrift by professional historians, especially regarding its presence in New England, and most particularly in comparison to the Puritans and their ecclesiastical descendants. Accurate knowledge of the history of the Episcopal Church both nationally and locally is generally rare, especially amongst lay people. Of Episcopal Church history in Maine very little in fact is written, and what there is of that has been produced by dedicated amateurs. These individuals, possessed of noble enthusiasm and dedication, nevertheless often neglect to check or cite their sources. Neither do they generally offer any contextualization or comparative analysis of events, processes, or interactions. This series represents only a modest attempt to begin a remedy to this situation. For example, just what is “Faith’s Review and Expectation”? Why should we care? 1 1 “Faith’s Review and Expectation” Charles P. M. Outwin Session Titles: #1. “To Promote the Glory of Almighty God”: the missionary Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and and its significance in the foundation of the Episcopal Church, 1700 - 1775. Founded in 1701, the SPG was (and still is) the Church of England's principal missionary organ. Contrary to popular belief (which holds that the SPG was intended principally for the maintenance of the institution of slavery) its main mission in North American was the supply of properly consecrated priests to parishes throughout the colonies. All the original bishops of the Episcopal church were SPG trained. Therefore, a heightened sense of mission was always a characteristic of the early Episcopal Church. #2. "The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ": the clash between traditional Church of England theology and Deist Humanism in early 18th c. England. This encounter produced much of the socially explosive situation regarding religious orthodoxy and morals we still have today in the United States. The clash produced Methodism, Evangelicalism, and the New Light Movement, also known as “the Great Awakening. It also prompted the rise of Unitarianism, Universalism, and atheist Socialism. Every party wanted to tell its story, and each did, often very loudly competing for hearts and minds, both before and after the War for Independence. #3. ""Rock of Ages": religion and belief systems were central to life in the British North American colonies before 1775. We have always been called "Episcopalians". In the south, the Church of England was dominant until the early 18th century; thereafter the Baptists began to make inroads. In the north, especially New England, Episcopalians were always in a minority, and never in a position of power. The longterm effect of the "Great Awakening," more properly called the New Light Movement, across the colonies was highly negative, even traumatic. It produced, on the one hand, converts to the Church of England, and on the other, new adherants to more radical Deist beliefs, especially Universalism. These creeds often came into passionate conflict with one another. 2 #4. “Not the severest punishment, not the fear of death”: religious life in Maine and at Falmouth in Casco Bay. During the first three quarters of the 18th century, consensus view of reality and belief systems in Maine were dominated by those of the Congregational Church, and by reaction to what happened therein. The Episcopalians, a clear minority, were always in danger of being overborne, and, after 1775, of being eradicated. SPG missionaries were harassed and terrorized, Episcopalians were oppressed, and churches destroyed. Yet the Episcopal parishes survived, often barely by a hair's breadth. #5. DIRIGO: The reestablishment of the Episcopal Church in Maine, between 1783 and 1846. This period was fraught with so much difficulty that the institution nearly went out of existence several times. St. John's, Pownalborough, withered after Parson Bailey was forced to leave. St. Ann's and St. Paul's struggled, and often were without priests. Money was always tight; clergy fled from Maine's harsh winter climate. The principal threat to the Church, however, was not the inhospitable frontier environment, before 1810, but came from the twin Deist creeds of Unitarianism and Universalism; these at first drew off so many congregants and so much money that little was left for other faiths. Shakers, Baptists, and Methodists also made inroads. However, after a revival of Episcopal theology and practice begun under John Henry Hobart of New York, and of the appointment of Alexander Viets Griswold as bishop of Massachusetts and of the pseudo-archepiscopal "Eastern Diocese", congregations and parishes in New England 2 “Faith’s Review and Expectation” Charles P. M. Outwin began a long, slow road to recovery. Dr. George Burgess became the first bishop of Maine in 1847, but the diocese could not afford to pay him a bishop's salary. Thus, he was simultaneously rector of what is today the sole remaining mother church of the diocese, Christ Church, Gardiner. #6. "The Value and Efficiency of the Ministry": growth of the Diocese of Maine was slow during its first fifty years, and its survival was not always certain. Nevertheless, efforts at mission, in the broadest sense of the word, never ceased. The parish church of St. Luke's in Portland’s West End was established rather late in the game, in 1851, by a former Episcopal missionary bishop to Constantinople (Istanbul), the Rt. Rev’d Horatio Southgate. Since the time it first became a parish, St. Luke's has always had an intensely dual roll: it is at once a parish church, and an Episcopal seat, with a remarkably strong undercurrent of missionary actively, both locally and internationally. The first bishop of Maine, George Burgess, under whose episcopal authority the parish was formed, died during his final roll as a missionary to Haiti. Maine’s second bishop, Dr. Henry Adams Neely, who served concurrently as rector of St. 3 Luke’s, saw the number of parishes in Maine went from nineteen in 1867 to forty four in 1899. 1 “Faith’s Review and Expectation” is the proper name of what today is one of our very best known, and loved, Anglican hymns. A clue: it was written in 1769, in England, when St. Paul’s Church in Falmouth was at the height of its colonial era strength. Still stumped? Another clue: it is sung to the tune “New Britain”… NOT a Scottish tune, as many believe, but American, from the southern Appalachian Mountains. Need more? It is one of the Olney Hymns, penned by the former slave ship captain and Christian convert, the Reverend John Newton. Got it yet, or are you still mystified? Ok. It’s known today as Amazing Grace. All these tidbits of information, when brought together, illuminate, enlarge, and deepen our understanding of the hymn, and our relationship to it. The hymn’s modern popularity, as well as its erroneous association with Scotland, is due entirely to its appearance on a highly popular LP record first issued in 1971 by RCA International, Farewell to the Greys, catalogue # INTS 1279. This record included the hymn tune “New Britain”, set for plaintive solo highland pipes and thunderously affirmative massed pipes, drums, and band. “New Britain” itself is thought to have been an ordinary folk tune; this assertion is supported by its pentatonic melody and “square” rhythmic structure. It was first matched to Newton’s words, by William Walker of South Carolina, for use in the fabulously popular tunebook, The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co. 1835. This is just a small example of what I mean by accurate history for the Episcopal Church. 2 “Rock of Ages,” by the way, is an Anglican hymn, not a Baptist one, as so many think: it was written in 1763 by the Rev’d Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-1778) who, although he was an Calvinist Evangelical in the vein of George Whitefield, was most definitely a priest of the Church of England. He served longest as the vicar of Broadhembury, in Devon. “Rock of Ages” is #685 in the 1982 hymnal. The hymn tune, “Toplady”, was composed by Thomas Hastings of Connecticut, and first published in 1830. “Rock of Ages” was widely popular long before it became associated with modern American Evangelicalism in the twentieth century. Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, is said to have asked for it to be sung to him on his deathbed in 1861; it was also heard at the Westminster Abbey funeral of former Prime Minister William Gladstone in 1898.

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